Cars on Tribeca Streets Hit by Rash of Tire Slashings

 Cars parked on Duane and Reade streets were hit by a rash of unexplained tire slashings last month.

This Jeep was one of about 15 cars vandalized on Duane St. over the weekend of March 22-23. Photo by Allan Tannenbaum

On Sunday morning, March 23, every one of about 15 cars on Duane Street between Church Street and West Broadway was found with one or two tires on the passenger side slashed, residents and car owners reported. And a resident on the block said that he saw a car with a slashed tire one block west, on the other side of West Broadway, on the same morning.

The First Precinct took six reports of slashed tires that weekend, three on Duane Street and three on Reade Street. Five of them were filed on Friday and Saturday. The owner of a car parked in front of 152 Reade St., between Hudson and Greenwich, reported a broken sideview mirror as well as two slashed tires.

In addition, the manager of a store on Duane Street told the Trib that one car owner had had a tire slashed on the block two weeks earlier. Then, on the same block and

several days after all the other cars were victimized, his car’s window was smashed.

Ken Price, another car owner, said that as he got into his Mercedes on the morning of March 23, he noticed that his car and the one behind it both had flats and he thought someone had let the air out. On closer inspection, he saw that the tires had been slashed.

“I thought maybe it was war related, because we both had German cars,” Price recalled. But then he saw all the other cars, including a Jeep, a Lincoln and an Audi, with flats.

“I imagine it was someone who was drunk and probably just went down the block looking for kicks,” said Price, who lives in Gramercy Park. “Just pure vandalism.”

John Macellari, a sculptor who has had a studio on the block for more than 25 years, said that his daughter and her boyfriend, who were visiting from Boston that weekend, were also victimized.

“He was pretty laid back about it,” Macellari said of the boyfriend, who owns the car. “I think I felt worse because they were visiting,”

Several neighborhood residents recalled a similar series of slashings a couple of years ago on Duane Street. But Rick Lee, the First Precinct’s Community Affairs Officer, said that there have not been other incidents recently.

“The anti-crime units will pay special attention to these two streets on the weekends,” he said.